Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Too bad Americans have to relearn this stuff again and again. These guys are at war with the United States and belong in Gitmo for the duration. There not criminals. They're warriors, and captured warriors belong in Gitmo.

The senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee wants no more Guantanamo Bay detainees released to Yemen in the wake of a Christmas day terrorist attack hatched in that country.

“Guantanamo detainees should not be released to Yemen at this time,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “It is too unstable.”

Feinstein’s warning comes just nine days after the Department of Justice announced the most recent transfer of 12 detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Afghanistan, Yemen and Somaliland. Six of the 12 were transferred to the government of Yemen.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Iran Global website has exposed a document that discloses information on Khamenei and various authorities of the regime’s possible escape to Russia.

The document is on the National Security Agency of the Islamic regime’s letterhead addressed from the office of the High Assembly of the Islamic Republic’s National Security official [name is redacted] to an individual [name redacted] in the revolutionary guards. The letter is dated 6th of Dey (December 27th).

It reads:

Re: Response to a letter number [redacted] written on the 5th of Dey (December 26th).

Salam Aleykom

With respect, we would like to inform you of the inspection, check up and preparation of the aircraft, destination Russia, for the purpose of transporting the Supreme Leader, his esteemed family and various officials of the Revolutionary Guards. Should the commanding forces lose control, direct your attention to the attached permit, number [redacted] of the National Security Agency and the Bureau of Revolutionary Guard’s Intelligence Security in order for the necessary steps to be taken.

Va al-salam

Office of the high assembly of the Islamic Republic’s national security

Commander, Brigadier-General, Revolutionary Guard

Stamped by Secretary General of the High Assembly of the Islamic Republic’s National Security

The system worked? A Dutch passenger worked and is the only reason the terror attack didn't succeed. Abdulmutallab goes to Yemen to get equipped for the attack? What in the world can Napolitano be thinking? Her job is to protect America from attack. To secue the homeland, not run from reality.

Pundita's take over at the Real Barack Obama. The administrations occupied with the politics and not the reality of protecting America. That's the only reason I can think for Napolitano's odd comments.

#Ashura #Iranelection Some of the chants heard on the streets today have included: “Ya Mahdi! Eradicate the roots of oppression!”, “This is the month of blood! Seyed Ali [Khamenei] is going down!”, “Down with the Dictator!”, “We are not from ‘Koofeh’ to support Yazid!”, “Rape, Murder, Down with the Jurisprudence!”, “Di...ctator should know, he will be toppled very soon!”, and “Death to Khamenei”, among others.

NCRI - The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns bloody suppression of defenseless people in Sirjan, central Iran, which has left dozens killed or wounded and calls for an international probe.

On Tuesday, December 22, the scene of a public hanging of two prisoners, Esmail Fathi-Zadeh and Mohammad Esfandiarpoor, in Sirjan turned into a confrontation between protesting people and the suppressive forces. Local residents and families of the two prisoners confronted the suppressive forces by hurling stones and chanting slogans.

During the clashes yesterday morning, people took advantage of the chaos and removed the prisoners from the scene set up for their hangings. According to earlier reports on Tuesday, one of the prisoners was thought to have been killed.

Having lost the control of the situation, the suppressive forces mobilized more of their agents across the city and re-captured the two prisoners and brought them back to the hanging ropes.

Local residents were angered by the regime’s henchmen and became more fierce in their protest against the hangings. In fear of the escalation of unrest, the suppressive forces opened fire on defenseless people killing at least five and dozens more were wounded. A number of the wounded were taken to hospitals in Kerman, the provincial capital. Some of the wounded are in critical state. A group of local residents and families of the two have been arrested. During the clashes, a number of vehicles belonging to the suppressive forces were set on fire.

The intelligence agents were deployed at the entry points to the city to control the traffic and helicopters were hovering over the city and the main roads to monitor the situation.

The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights organizations, in particular the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, to condemn deteriorating human rights situation in Iran and dispatch an international fact finding mission to probe the bloody suppression in Sirjan.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of IranDecember 23, 2009

According to ParlemanNews, Seyyed Ali Mousavi, 35 year old nephew of Mir Hossein Mousavi, was shot dead in today’s events.He was shot in the heart at noon in central Tehran during today events.At the moment his body is in one of Tehran’s hospitals and Mir Hossein Mousavi along with families of this green martyr and some political figures is in the hospital at the moment...هیهات من الذله...هیهات من الذله...هیهات من الذله......هیهات...هیهات

Thursday, December 24, 2009

From the Prolog to Arlene's new novel. Looks like it starts at the Hospital my kids were born at. Good luck with the book Arlene, and Merry Christmas. Hope Hollywood finds you!

~1985~

The sound of the baby crying had been going on for hours. His intense screams filled the otherwise quiet hallways of Austin General Hospital. Located on the WestSide of Chicago in the rapidly gentrifying community of West Austin, Austin General or A.G. as it was nicknamed by the staff had quickly gained a reputation as “the place” to give birth in all of the Chicagoland area.

The nursery was the center hub of the third floor maternity ward. Its waist-to-ceiling clear glass windows topped a bay-shaped viewing area that allowed parents and visitors to observe the infants at all times. The walls were tinted in the softest of green color so that they radiated both warmth and calm to those who beheld it. The space beneath the window area was configured to hold four to six of the specially designed Lucite bassinets. Each bassinet was custom embossed with the A.G. signature crest—a physician with outstretched hands holding a naked newborn baby while the mother laying in bed reaches her arms out to embrace it.

Normally the nursery was filled with at least four infants. But tonight in a rare moment of delivery room slowdown, the only occupant was a newborn baby boy. Swaddled in receiving blankets, wearing a sky blue skullcap and barely six-hours-old, he had done a stellar job of making his presence known to anyone entering the floor.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The photo above, taken by a Reuters stringer, serves as a gruesome reminder of the nature of radical Islamist groups and the failure to oppose them. Here is the Reuters cation:

Militants from Hizbul Islam haul the bloodied body of Mohamed Ibrahim, 48, from a chest-deep pit after stoning him to death for illicit sexual intercourse with a woman in the Afgoye district, Somalia on December 13, 2009. Ibrahim was sentenced to death by a local Islamic court after he was found guilty of infidelity.

Keep this photo in mind when Martin Fletcher, Matthew Yglesias, the Los Angeles Times, and a host of pundits attempt to pin the blame for the rise of Islamic extremism and the al Qaeda-linked Shabaab in Somalia on the US. Hizbul Islam, which is led by al Qaeda-linked Hassan Dahir Aweys, co-led the Islamic Courts with Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who is now the President of Somalia, before it was ousted by Ethiopian forces in December 2007. The Islamic Courts was by no means a moderate group when it assumed power in the spring and summer of 2006. The Islamic Courts conducted suicide attacks, had women stoned to death for adultery, murdered people in theaters for watching soccer, and committed a host of other outrageous crimes that mirrored what the Taliban have done and still continue to do.

We may well soon have fifty slots for these Health Care Exchange Czars to be filled. So maybe it's time to speculate who gets 'em.

One Czar per state with vast sway over how Health Care funding will be reimbursed and policies written. Tremendous influence resolving disputes over coverage and payment. Fricken golden appointments not to be wasted as we would say in Illinois.

So any guesses who these men and women might be? Any idea who the candidates in the back of the Chicagoan minds might be? This will be jobs bigger than working the Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation agency. Contracts and jobs to be dispensed by these Czars. Who's lining up to be one?

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

"The Hurt Locker," Kathryn Bigelow's compelling film about a death-defying bomb disposal unit in Iraq, swept the field Monday as the 57 members of the Chicago Film Critics Association revealed their 2009 awards.

The film won every category it was nominated in: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Jeremy Renner), Best Original Screenplay (Mark Boal), and Best Cinematography (Barry Ackroyd).

The Chicago victories, seen in the context of other big-city critics groups and the Golden Globe nominations, bring a few pre-Oscar trends into focus:

* "The Hurt Locker," moderately-budgeted at $11 million and produced independently, is in a horserace with "Up in the Air" in the Best Picture Category.

* Bigelow is the possible front-runner for Best Director. No woman has ever won in the category, and only three have been nominated: Lina Wertmüller ("Seven Beauties," 1976); Jane Campion ("The Piano," 1993), and Sofia Coppola ("Lost in Translation," 2003). That will work in her favor. Ironically, if her ex-husband James Cameron is nominated for his "Avatar," that may help her. Oscar voters love drama.

As a complete story, it's not much, but there are bits-and-pieces, individual scenes, that are good; and I especially liked the end when the hero is getting off the C-120 for his second deployment. It sure looks like Iraq too. Not some place in southern California.

The Senate Bill's a very bad piece of work certain to be a millstone around the Democratic Party for years. It's going to take a decade to digout from under the damage this thing creates if implemented.

My neighbor the GOP activists stops over last week with literature on various candidates in Feb's primary but nothing on Hastert v Hultgren. I asked why and he winced saying Hastert's going to win. I said yeah but he's going to lose to Foster. Too much pain among GOP stalwarts after the Dad's resignation then backing Oberweis, and too much distaste among suburban women (and others) to the Hastert+Oberweis names. My activist-neighbor replied, "Foster's hasn't made mistakes and he's got lots of money. It's gonna be tough".

Tough in a year the GOP should win handily. How in the world does the GOP in the Illinois 14th manage this kind of mess?

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not. 2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS. 3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums. 4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. 5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays. 6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins. 7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others. 8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market. 9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Obama launches cruise missles a few days ago into Yemen for the likes of,

US intelligence reports have said "dozens" of senior al-Qaeda members are established in Yemen. Telephone intercepts and other surveillance detected close ties with groups based in South Asia. Officials claimed that Saleh al-Somali, a Somali-born terrorist killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan last week, had orchestrated movement between the two war zones.

But other most wanted figures remain at large. Ibrahaim al-Rubaish, known as the "poet of Guantanamo", who was released from the US prison camp in 2006 to undergo rehabilitation in Saudi Arabia, has fled to Yemen, as have other ex-prisoners.

I wonder how many Americans know America's at this work? Talk about MSM failing America... More from Bill Roggio here.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Fortunately, since our memoriam of Ladner Brothres posted, we received this message from John Ladner, the great-grandson of one of the founders (Carl) and John Sr.’s grandson, “Your page has brought a lot of mail my way, mostly asking if it is still available somewhere. Fans of bygone liquor are legion. I now have the coveted family recipe (not much like Martha’s) that produces 24 gallons of the stuff in a single batch. If you know of any boutique liquor bottlers, I could get them some customers…”

A place I knew well. The place West Madison street will never be replaced but we may wet our pallets with the punch again soon.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Gotta hand it to him. Like Rod Blagojevich, he won't go away. Facebook entry, cleaned up wiki bio, Alsammarae's back and running for office in Iraq. From Aamer Madhani in USA Today with HT to The Common Ills,

Alsammarae, who holds dual U.S.-Iraqi citizenship, thinks he can win in Iraq's 2010 elections with a dose of Chicago-style politics. Over the past few months, he has quietly traveled to the city of Samarra and says he has won pledges of support from tribal leaders representing more than 20,000 voters.

He figures 50,000 votes will win him the seat.

"We have to do it the Obama way. We are trying to send a message of change. We will clean up the system," Alsammarae says during an interview here in the Jordanian capital about his election plans.

And part of the Obama way is a big web effort,

Part of Alsammarae's campaign money is being used to pay several Iraqi college students living in Jordan to "improve" his reputation on Iraqi blogs, where he is often pilloried with accusations of corruption.

At a recent meeting with some of the students, Alsammarae praised one young man for responding to a posting that blasted him. The student, Ali Koperly, 22, wrote on the blog that Alsammarae did a good job rebuilding Iraq's electrical grid.

"We have to show the corruption of the current Iraqi government," Koperly said.

Alsammarae has traveled to Iraq on several occasions in recent months, but he says he'll stay clear of Baghdad until he wins a seat in parliament. After all, he says he still has enemies in the current government that he says would like to see him behind bars.

"I have to be careful," Alsammarae says. "You never know if this government will try to make up some new charges against me."

PS The photo is Alsammarae at Illinois's Gov Rod Blagojevich's dinner for Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. You'll see a reference to this in the first comment to the USA story by someone well versed in the history

Thursday, December 10, 2009

1. The level of un- and underemployment is so huge by historical standards as to make the usual sort of measurement questionable. With nearly 20% of the population unable to find proper work, there is a different sort of workforce. The vast majority of job creation in the US during the past two generations came from small businesses, which display only vaguely on the radar of government agencies as well as the bigger private surveys. The financial crisis killed small entrepreneurs as surely as Joseph Stalin killed the kulaks, and the roots of the economy are dead and dry.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

At a time of double-digit unemployment, the last thing our country needs is a jobs-killing cap and trade scheme imposed on our families and small businesses by bureaucrats at the United Nations. The American people have a right to debate this issue at home and with their elected leaders.

The American people deserve to know whether the president is going to enter the United States into a so-called ‘political agreement’ on cap and trade when the Constitution reserves to the Senate the power to ratify legally binding treaties. The president must clarify statements made by officials within his administration that suggest they will attempt an end-run around the Constitution in the name of global cap and trade.

The president must also address how reducing carbon emissions will affect our struggling small businesses, manufacturers and farmers. Further, developing countries have pledged to protect their growing economies from international carbon caps. Why are we placing American workers and businesses at a competitive disadvantage? I strongly urge the president to address these concerns before he flies to Copenhagen and commits our nation to a devastating cap and tax agreement.

Saturday, December 05, 2009

Chicago police were looking into an early-morning burglary Friday at the South Side offices of his lawyers. Computers containing copies of the nearly 500 hours of recordings in the Blagojevich case and other sensitive evidence were stolen, sources said.

It was unclear whether the burglary was carried out by thieves knowing what they were after or was a smash-and-grab by criminals looking for cash or easy-to-move merchandise. But the burglars didn't appear to be terribly sophisticated, setting off an alarm about 4 a.m.

At least eight laptops and a safe were stolen, sources said.

I'm going with the inside job theory. Five hundred hours of recordings with Rahm and the rest of the crew are fricken golden. Terrible thins to waste on trials when they can be played for favors.

Madigan, a powerful veteran Southwest Side leader, predicts that the economy might get worse before it gets better, meaning fewer jobs and fewer people paying taxes.

"For those that think that tax increases are the answer, it's a partial answer," Madigan told an audience gathered for a panel discussion at the annual Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation meeting in Rosemont on Thursday. "Because you can raise the rate on the Illinois income tax, but if the economy is not performing you're not going to get an increase in money out of the increase in rate."

The state budget deficit is as much as $12 billion, depending on who is doing the estimating.Madigan said while the public may be aware of the financial help provided to major banks under the federal stimulus package, many don't know that institutions also borrowed from private lenders, and those loans come due next year. He said the banks may have a hard time making those payments, therefore there is a "major threat of further contraction" in the economy during the first part of 2010.

"Everybody should understand... we are in a very difficult economic situation," Madigan said. "Not everybody in the country fully appreciates the gravity of the situation."

Americans honor the courageous informant, the gutsy citizen who stands against the savagery of the profit-mongering conglomerate. Well, sometimes. It appears, believe it or not, that there are those who aren't religiously tethered to this sacred obligation.

For now -- because of revelations of the ClimateGate scandal, in which hacked e-mails revealed discussions among top climate scientists about the manipulation of evidence -- Phil Jones, head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in Britain, has stepped down from his position. Michael Mann, architect of the famous "hockey stick" graph, is now under investigation by Pennsylvania State University. Similar inquiries should follow.

More over the weekend on Climategate. Way too much money was being dished out not to be suspect about global warming. Now it seems use skeptics had plenty to be skeptical about.

WARNING: Very Graphic video via Al Jessera but worth viewing by anyone who believes there are nonviolent althernatives to dealing with Radical Muslims who will do this to fellow Muslims. H/T Bill Roggio,

Al Jazeera provides footage of the Shabaab suicide attack in Mogadishu, Somalia. The bomber detonated at a graduation ceremony for medical students.

An Iraqi journalist threw his shoe on Tuesday at Iraqi reporter Montazer Al Zaidi who was imprisoned for throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush.The shoe hit the wall next to Al Zaidi’s head. The attacker accused Al Zaidi of siding with dictatorship.

Following the incident, Al Zaidi argued that he threw his shoe at occupation not at a fellow Iraqi citizen.

Senior Iraqi journalist Saif al-Khayat to hit the channel Baghdadiya correspondent Zaidi threw his shoes during a recent seminar in the French capital this afternoon about the reality of the media in Iraq, the incident coincided with the anniversary of the first to throw Zaidi pair of shoes at the former American President George W. Bush.

Zaidi was the assault on President George W. Bush throw threw his shoes and calling him a "dog" in December of 2008 during a joint press conference held by President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad.

Khayat said in an interview with "Alsumaria News" that he threw his shoes on al-Zaidi was "due to the organization of the Baathists, who hosted the conference on Tuesday in Paris as well as the designation of terrorist groups, resistance during the conference," he says, pointing out that the conference organized by the Media Iraqi Saad al-Masoudi, which he described as a tailor "one of the intelligence elements of the regime of Saddam Hussein's former regime."

He said that the tailor, "Zaidi, bypassing the Iraqi journalists and accused them of neutrality and try to pass the American project in Iraq," Roy said, "you asked Zaidi about the reason for the Syrian hospitality, and the reason and name of terrorist groups as resistance, then the pair of shoes thrown at him, loudly it true you, Maximize the journalists free Iraqis. "

He pointed out that the tailor's brother Zaidi and some guards accompanying him as well as conference organizer Saad al-Masoudi, "tried to assault" on it, but he lifted a chair, threatening them with "beating" in the event of approaching him, according to what he said.

He pointed out that the tailor to throw Zaidi shoe came to "the failure of the Baathists planned expansion between journalists in Paris, as well as silence the voice of anti-democratic experience in Iraq," according to his words.

The tailor worked in several media organizations in Iraq during the past four years, such as the fallopian Fayhaa and Iraqi as well as a correspondent for the Japanese news agency before deciding to seek asylum in France and stay in the end of 2008.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Frank Oliveri and Bill Roggio both elaborated on the particular challenges of moving 30 thousand combat troops into Afghanistan in the next six months. The critical fact is that this is a landlocked country -- and this increases the costs, the demands on transportation, the expectations of deployment.

Frank Oliveri called 10th Mountain and the Marines, and both said they were ready to go now, pending transportation.

Bill Roggio presented the case that getting that many combat troops into Kandahar province and environs in this six month period, including winter, is so daunting that it isn't how well, it is if at all.

Spoke to Ann Marlowe at Kabul, and she reported on dinner conversation with unnamed American colonels after POTUS speech at West Point. The general opinion is that getting those troops into Afghanistan is beyond the logistics that exist now. There wasn't laughter. Just head shaking.

Ann Marlowe also emphasized that once the troops reach Afghanistan, especially in the South and East, the logistics inside the country are spare. There is already a chronic shortage of aircraft. The roads except in select places are treacherous and nonexistent. The culverts built by the contractors are routine places for the Taliban to plant IEDs. Mostly, Ann Marlowe emphasized the forbidding nature of the countryside. It is moon like. It is the home court of the Taliban. She mentioned that it can take 12 hours to go 40 kilometers. Six months to deploy, eighteen months to start the handover. Not on a landlocked clock.

Middle of the No Roads

Also spoke to Peter Wallsten, WSJ, (above) re the politics the day after the POTUS speech. He reported that neither the Left nor the Right supports the decision. POTUS is in the middle of partisan noise now, and there is no center to stand with him -- no middle of the no roads.

Gallup reports that the POTUS approval on Afghanistan policy has declined from over 50% to 35%. Wallsten remarked that Democrats in primary races are running hard left, anti-war and anti-Obama policy on Afghanistan. The people who elected POTUS are now walking away, or, as Wallsten said for the elections in 2010, the base support of POTUS and the Democrats is ready to stay home. The testimony by the three chieftains, Clinton, Gates and Mullen, only reinforced the measure that only those who work for POTUS are following POTUS down that lonely middle.

Texas, on the other hand, with its more entrepreneurial political culture, created 70 percent of the new jobs in the United States in 2008, according to the Trends article. Think about it, one state created 7 out of 10 jobs!

The White House jobs summit is a public relations gambit, not a serious employment generator. In fairness to the president, he has to do something. This is the Obama equivalent of the infamous George H. W. Bush line: "Message: I care." But the real problem is one of cognitive dissonance for the entrepreneur.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs seems to have a real problem with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Either that or Gibbs is so dim that he doesn't realize that when he misrepresents Afghanistan troop requests at the end of the Bush administration he's trashing Gates -- President Obama's top defense policymaker.

On Tuesday night, President Obama made the following claim: "Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive. That’s why, shortly after taking office, I approved a long-standing request for more troops."

At the White House briefing yesterday, ABC's Jake Tapper pressed Robert Gibbs about the claim and asked him to specify when such requests took place.

Gibbs: "Again, what President Obama was talking about were additional resource requests that came in during 2008, which we've discussed in here."

Robert Gates was Defense Secretary in 2008. Barack Obama kept him in that job and, according to numerous accounts of his decision to sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, relied heavily on advice from Gates in coming up with his new strategy. So is Gates to blame for these resource requests that did not arrive?

Gibbs is right about one thing. Those requests from 2008 had been discussed at the briefings before. What he failed to mention is that he was wrong back then, too. A Pentagon official close to Gates, speaking of the WH claims, told TWS, "on the facts, they're wrong."

Look no further than Lisa Madigan’s decision not to run for Governor of Illinois next year. That’s gotta be a calculation by the Madigans --some of the shrewdest Democratic minds around-- that Obama’s making a mash of America and it’s no reason to go down with this shape. Mike Madigan knows these Democrats America’s sent to Washington better than almost anyone. That family sits things out, Democrats should know they’re in a deep mess with Obama.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Made me recall Blackfive's recent post on Obama Salutes, and this link to the NYT. Reagan started the practice.....

Presidents have long been saluted, but they began returning salutes relatively recently. Ronald Reagan was thought to be the first, in 1981. He had sought advice on the matter from Gen. Robert Barrow, commandant of the Marine Corps. According to John Kline, then Mr. Reagan’s military aide and today a member of Congress from Minnesota, General Barrow told the president that as commander in chief he could salute anybody he wished. And so it began.

Mr. Reagan’s successors continued the practice, and I continued to be conflicted — believing that when it comes to salutes (and one or two other matters), presidents deserved to be cut some slack, but also feeling a little uneasy about the whole thing.

My ambivalence came to an end last week, when I saw a videotape of the president’s midnight trip to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where he had participated, very early that morning, in the “dignified transfer” of 15 Army soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed that week in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama stood ramrod straight and saluted as six soldiers carried the coffin bearing the body of Sgt. Dale Griffin of Indiana off a C-17 transport aircraft and into a waiting van. His salute, it struck me, was impeccable in every way.

I'm guessing after Obama announces his new Af-Pak strategy next week, I'll be Obama's defender here, and the anti-Obama emails in need of research we'll be flying the other way.

A senior policy fellow for Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) has pleaded guilty to defrauding the government and private lenders of nearly $822,000 by using aliases to obtain student loans and more than 90 credit cards.

Ernest B. Moore, who went by Bernard Moore and Bernard Glenn-Moore on Capitol Hill, had a penchant for putting together events with marquee names — and a special legislative interest in sentencing issues and measures like the “Second Chance Act,” which is designed to help nonviolent offenders reabsorb into society.

“Who knew that he was writing that bill for himself?” quipped a former congressional aide who knows Moore.

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am enjoying every day. On the other hand, I was born Czechoslovak and educated Czechoslovak. To people like myself, the Czech Republic was an entirely different concept. I did not like being defined by my language. I think that I am much more complicated. I want to be much more complicated. I believe that if you are looking for the most tragic mistake in European history it is acceptance of the concept of language-based nationalism.

Just yesterday I was giving a lecture in Vienna and said a hundred years ago Vienna was my capital. We only had one political system, one parliament, one currency, one transportation system. After two world wars and the expulsion of millions, are we any wiser?

As we get closer to 2014 and the centennial of the start of WW1 expect more on what was lost with multicultural i.e. multilignual Empires.

Robert Creamer, the husband of my congresscritter, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), attended tonight's White House state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Schakowsky was of course also there, but she is not a convicted felon. Hubby is.

Ultimately, there has to be a negotiated end to the war. The issue is how to go about it. Do you talk to the enemy from a position of weakness, as Pakistan did during the Musharraf era and learned to its sorrow that this approach only served to strengthen the rebels? Or do you talk from a position of strength? To think that Hamid Karzai could help in this regard is to be naive.

Going by what Richard Holbrooke said on Monday, Washington has been in touch with Islamabad on the new AfPak policy yet to be unveiled. Pakistan has vital stakes in the outcome of the war.

All one hopes is that a phoney peace will not be achieved for the sake of a hurried withdrawal to placate an increasingly sceptical public in the West.

The Obama administration and those involved in back-channel probes must realise how dangerous it would be to quit Afghanistan in a manner that leaves the Taliban in a dominant position.

My emphasis on the final two paragraphs. I hoe this is not the route we're headed towards.

A perception of this wavering has also influenced the Pakistani military. An armed forces spokesperson claimed recently that the army had reached the headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan after a month-long campaign, and taken control of all key positions. The next step, under pressure from the US, was to have been to move into neighboring North Waziristan, the purported headquarters of al-Qaeda and the largest Taliban-led group, the Haqqani network.

However, the military, given the signals coming out of Britain, Italy, France and Canada, and the dithering of US President Barack Obama over sending more troops to Afghanistan, is not prepared at this point to extend its operations.

Monday, November 23, 2009

A Proft Press Release. This is why I like they guy. He's not afraid to throw a few rocks and team up with Obama's Spiritual Advisor on an issue where African Americans have long been stiffed by the Democrat / Teacher's Union strangle hold on schools.

You cannot be on the dole of the teachers’ unions and be a credible, effective agent for system change of K-12 in Illinois.

It is on this basis that I have called for Illinois Republicans to stop taking campaign cash from the teachers’ unions.

Two of my opponents, State Sens. Kirk Dillard and Bill Brady, have taken tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from the teachers’ unions and show no willingness to stop. Perhaps that explains why neither has introduced any meaningful K-12 legislation in their 15 years in the Illinois General Assembly.

Another opponent, Andy McKenna, the counterfeit “outsider”, is backed by Springfield insiders like House GOP Leader Tom Cross who has operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Illinois Education Association during his tenure. Perhaps this explains why McKenna offers little more than empty bromides like “we need to do whatever it takes” to improve K-12 without ever defining what the “whatever” looks like.

Contrast this with the bold step forward State Senator James Meeks, a Chicago Democrat, has taken to introduce school choice legislation for families whose children are relegated to failing schools in Chicago.

For breaking from the ranks of those who protect the status quo at the expense of children deprived of the opportunity to earn a quality education, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) vowed not to give Meeks any more campaign cash.

Sen. Meeks’ response? He wrote a check back to the CTU for the $4,000 they had contributed to date.

The message from Sen. Meeks to CTU is clear: I don’t want your blood money.

If only the ILGOP was as stout of heart.

If only the ILGOP was willing to stop taking the money and start taking the fight to the teachers’ unions who preside like Soviet apparatchiks over failing K-12 systems in Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, Decatur, Springfield, East St. Louis and throughout Illinois where children from low-income families are discriminated against based on their address and household income in terms of the educational opportunities they can access.

I am the one candidate for Governor willing and able to fill this leadership vacuum for the Illinois Republican Party.

I am the one candidate for Governor who has advanced a statewide school choice plan that expands educational opportunities by changing how the money flows and who gets to make spending decisions as it pertains to the education of our young people. Under my plan, we invest in families and let them choose the best course for their children. Under my plan, we stop financing command control bureaucracies and moribund teachers’ unions.

Last week, I had a productive meeting with Sen. Meeks on this very topic. We have slightly different roadmaps when it comes to school choice but share a common destination: a child-centered K-12 system that focuses on educational outputs.

As Governor, with the leadership of legislators like Sen. Meeks, we can build the necessary coalition across party lines to advance a school choice policy that provides every child in Illinois with a legitimate opportunity to be a successful, independent adult able to effectively compete in our global, digital economy.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan's Defense Minister announced the Afghan Army would be expanded to more than 240,000 soldiers. Wardak described President Obama's process to decide on a US increase in troops as "long awaited and over-elaborated," which prompted laughter from the senior US generals in attendance, including General Stanley McChrystal.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Re: mammograms. An independent body, after review and analysis of eight clinical trials, comes out with EVIDENCE that mammogram screening in under-40-year-olds has little or no value. What happens? The radiologists are up in arms and the Obama administration, in the person of DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, tells patients to just keep doing what you did last year. And they want to cut costs by a billion dollars over the next decade to pay for national health insurance? If anyone really believes this country will ever control the costs of health care, they are living in a dream land!”

Interesting, too, that nobody’s paying much attention to the study that showed that electronic medical records haven’t improved outcomes or cost so far, even as the government is spending lots of money on those, too. At least EHRs have potential. In an economy where jobs are dying out, politicians don’t have the guts to make serious change since the people unhappy with health care don’t have the clout of those who like it just fine. I cited statistics here years ago saying that health care was making a staggering economy look robust because of rising costs, profits, and high employment, all unsustainable in a global economy.

I suppose the question then is how confident anyone can be the government as opposed to markets can make Health Care a sustainable sector in the economy.

Considering the Gov's placing its bets on tick-box medicine, voodoo economics on preventive med, and EHR; I'm not very confident. I think it has to do with politicians guts and lack there of. Sarah Palin maybe? She has guts.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

I wondered when he was going to do it. Here's his letter over at Illinois Review in response to Carol Marin.

The most effective response may be over at Kass though,

All this talk of reform is exciting, except for one thing. Proft has a problem. It's the size of Cicero. That doesn't necessarily disqualify him. But when a candidate is linked to Cicero, that candidate finds himself on the defensive.

For years Proft's public relations firm has reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from governments in and around Cicero, not exactly the most reformish hamlet in the state.

My colleague at the Sun-Times, Carol Marin, has been merciless in dissecting Proft. She's made Cicero a special study for years. If Proft thought that one day he'd run for governor, he should have stayed out of the town that Al Capone built.

"I'm not here to try and convince you that Cicero is Mayberry," Proft said. "People can play that guilt-by-association game. I had a responsibility to a client, to represent their interests, just like an attorney would, just like any professional would. And that's what I did."

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: "If you're gonna prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs, the defendant, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent. The big problem I have is you're criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we have mixed theories and couldn't turn him over to the CIA, the FBI, military intelligence for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now you're saying he's subject to criminal court in the United States and you're confusing the people fighting this war."

I asked for his assessment of the threat to Illinois by placing Gitmo detainees at Thomson. He said folks should just ask for the same information on the Gitmo detainees as is available to him and the other members of the House Intelligence Committee. Everyone can make their own threat assessments. Hoekstra thinks when the average American knows what he and the committee knows, we'll all want to keep these guys in Cuba.

So ok Congressman Bill Foster, how about telling all of us in Illinois's 14th district the full bio's on these fellows the administration proposes to haul up to Illinois?

Let us all make our own assessments on how much of a target we're making Illinois.

Re: Fort Hood: Hoekstra was one of the first to call this a terrorist act by a self-radicalized American. He says we've only seen the tip of the iceberg, we will see much more coming out on where the whole process broke down to allow Hasan to function much less be deployed to A-stan. How did Hasan get good performance reviews? (Hoeksta has seen?) H believes there is serious evidence to consider as a terrorist attack.

Re: KSM trial. Attack American civilians and you get a civil trial. All stems from O's ill fated Jan 22, 2009 decision to close Gitmo. Jack Reed's comment on Fox Sunday in reply to what do we do if KSM acquitted, and Reed said we'd still hold them, was an embarrassment. If we missed the deadline on Gitmo closing, we may very well miss the deadline on the trial and these guys may well go free.

Hoeksta mentions the John Adams project and says start researching them, and ask which side their on?

What's update on Patriot Act? It's getting hung up on definition of lone wolf. Administration is in free fall on the act with three key provisions getting set to expire.

Doesn't the trial put our whole Intel Apparatus on trial? H: amen.

We can fully expect AQ will use a trial to expose US Intel Methods and they will use the John Adam's project as an ally.

Re: Thomson and a threat assessment. Ask for the same information House Intel has and let everyone make their own threat assessment. Average American gets that and will say whow... now we know we have Gitmo in Cuba.

Foster's one tight lipped Rep, that's for sure. The latest from the Illinois GOP.

When Will Bill Foster End His Silence on Great Lakes Gitmo?

Foster voted against bringing terrorists to U.S. soil last month;

Bean opposes transfer as polling shows 57% oppose in Illinois

CHICAGO – Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady today called on Congressman Bill Foster to end his silence on Governor Quinn and Senator Durbin’s plan to build a new Gitmo facility in Thomson, Illinois to house up to 215 Al Qaeda terrorists.

On October 15, 2009, Foster was one of only 25 Democrats in Congress who voted to keep Gitmo open and strip language from the Homeland Security Appropriations bill allowing terrorists to come to the United States for civilian prosecution (Roll Call 783). But when asked his view on the Quinn-Durbin plan to bring Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, Foster told the Daily Heraldhe was “still studying the issue.”

“Bill Foster was not sent to Congress to sit on the sidelines. I hope Bill Foster will have the courage to do what’s right and oppose bringing Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois,” Brady said

According to a survey of 1,781 likely Illinois voters conducted Monday night, less than one-third of Illinois voters support a plan to move terrorists from Gitmo to Thomson, Illinois while 57 percent call it a “bad idea.” Sixty percent of women and 58 percent of independents oppose the plan. Even Democrats narrowly oppose the plan, 44.5 percent to 43 percent.

Federal stimulus dollars were used to help laid off congressional districts in Illinois, according to Recovery.gov. In fact, nearly $500,000 was directed towards the 20th District, which lost its job following the 2000 census. That’s not all, $2.4 million was sent to the district’s retired compatriots–the 21st and 22nd–which were done away with after the 1990 census.

All told, $6.6 million was distributed to six districts, which do not exist.

Neo's comment over at Long War Journal about a party in Pakistan like minded westerners do ignore. Librealism's huge inexplicable failure to defend Liberal Islam.

It should be said that the Awami Party is not anti-Taliban, per se, but against the violence of both the Taliban and their government opponents. There movement is very much in the passive resistance activist mold, although they do not outright proscribe strict pacifism. The do tend to mirror western passive resistance movements in many ways. For much of the conflict they tended to be sympathetic to the plight of Pashtoons who joined the Taliban and blamed the Pakistani government and western powers as the ultimate source of conflict.

The Awami Party did rather well in regional elections only two years ago. At the time the Taliban intimidated them quite a bit, but found their votes temporarily useful for for drawing off PPP votes, and for the Awami stand against “America’s war” in Pakistan. Since then, the Taliban has declared open season on them and we don’t hear much from the Awami Party folks other than their death notices.

One would think the plight of the Awami Party would be an example to like minded westerners, but they are virtually invisible in the western press. I would tend to think of them as the canary in the coal mine for any prospects of pacifying the Taliban.

The key to victory was that Pelosi and Emanuel understood that their relatively new House majority is built on a layer of conservative-leaning districts won under perfect conditions in 2006 and 2008. And the two actively discourage members from some of those districts from voting in ways that would be construed as out of tune with their constituents. When the House passed Democrats' cap-and-trade energy legislation in June, for example, 44 Democrats joined 168 Republicans in voting no. Twenty-nine of those Democrats were from districts that President Obama failed to carry in 2008. Likewise, when the House approved Democrats' health care legislation, 39 Democrats, including 32 from districts that Obama lost, joined all but one Republican in voting no.

So what's so smart about building a bipartisan coalition against Obama and Pelosi care?

Late last month, two arrests in Chicago seemed to confirm a pattern of American citizens wishing to engage in acts of terror abroad but failing. But new reports from India indicate that at least one of the two arrested may have been involved in planning the coordinated attacks in Mumbai last year. Those attacks killed 173 people and have been described as India’s 9/11.

If these reports pan out, then a Chicago-area man who legally changed his name from Daood Gilani to David Headley — and who had previously been indicted for planning a foiled terror attack against Denmark’s Jylland Posten newspaper as “revenge” for printing cartoons of the prophet Mohammad — conducted surveillance of targets in Mumbai. He helped facilitate the massacre in which innocent civilians were methodically gunned down at the real-time urging of their Lashkar-e-Taiba controllers from Pakistan.

There are reports that one or both of the two unnamed Pakistani conspirators who worked with Rana and Headley are Pakistani military officers. My sources said that Rana's brothers are not the unnamed suspects.

Headley is suspected of scouting Mumbai for the Lashkar-e-Taiba prior to the deadly 62-hour terror assault on the city that left more than 170 dead. Headley spent 10 days at the Taj Hotel, which was one of the primary targets of the Lashkar-e-Taiba operation in Mumbai.

CHICAGO – Less than one-third of Illinois voters support a plan to move terrorists from Gitmo to Thomson, Illinois while 57 percent call it a “bad idea,” according to a survey released today by We Ask America, a division of Xpress Professional Services, Inc. of Springfield, Illinois.

According to the overnight survey of 1,791 likely Illinois voters, 60 percent of women and 58 percent of independents oppose the plan. Even Democrats narrowly oppose the plan, 44.5 percent to 43 percent.

It has been reported that a prison in northwestern Illinois is being considered to house individuals that have been incarcerated at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay. The individuals in question are being held due to suspicion that they have connections to terrorist activities. Do you think that housing these prisoners in an Illinois prison is a GOOD IDEA or a BAD IDEA?

Overall: Independents Democrats

Good idea: 32.33% Good idea: 33.78% Good idea: 42.62%

Bad idea: 56.95% Bad idea: 57.90% Bad idea: 44.46%

Unsure: 10.72% Unsure: 8.32% Unsure: 12.92%

“Democrat mismanagement and corruption is no excuse to put our homeland security at risk,” IL Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady said. “Governor Quinn and Senator Durbin should listen to the people of Illinois and oppose this risky scheme.”

Visitors Monday to the spot where Scott died didn't see any police or security cameras that might have recorded Scott's last living seconds. With all the high-tech in Chicago, the spot where Scott died is seemingly off the grid.

It is not a place for public men like Scott. Rather, it is a place for homeless junkies and rats. It is a place to hide.

It's certainly not a place for Daley's 1983 deputy campaign manager and, until Monday, the mayor's president of the Chicago Board of Education.

The Cook County medical examiner's office ruled Scott's death a suicide. But police aren't so sure.

"We know what the ME ruled," said Police Superintendent Jody Weis. "But there are a lot of questions out there."

Joe and John over at Animal Farm note what goes around comes around I guess. Maybe an adjoining site for Iraqi guards to practice with AK47s can be found too? Savanna seems to attract that kind of interest.

So there's irony No. 1. The Department of Defense was ready to hand over land for a state prison in the 1990s that could now end up being sold to the federal government so the Department of Defense could house detainees.

Perhaps you desire a little more irony?

Thomson was finished in 2001 but never staffed because of state budget problems. After hitting up taxpayers to build the prison, the state couldn't find the money to pay for the guards and other staff and so this modern prison sits virtually unused.

During Thomson's construction, the economy had been humming along. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks crashed the economy and subsequent credit crunches created a recession from which Illinois has yet to recover.

The irony is that if it had not been for those attacks, Thomson rather likely would have been opened and staffed by then-Gov. George Ryan and never available to house terrorist detainees.

According to the Chicago Tribune, your Administration may transfer up to 200 Al Qaeda terrorists from their detention facility in Guantanamo Bay to a prison in Thomson, Illinois – 150 miles from Chicago.

If your Administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization.

Furthermore, since Thomson is located in the Northern District of Illinois, any civilian prosecution of Al Qaeda terrorists would occur in Rockford or downtown Chicago.

As home to America’s tallest building and leading defense suppliers, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target.

The United States spent more than $50 million to build the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to keep terrorists away from U.S. soil. Al Qaeda terrorists should stay where they cannot endanger American citizens.

As citizens of the State of Illinois, we urge you to put the safety and security of Illinois families first and stop any plan to transfer Al Qaeda terrorists to our state.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Via Long War Journal. Pakistan's Northwest Frontier's taken the brunt of Jihadi terror lately,

A suicide bomber killed four Pakistanis while targeting a police station in the latest strike in Peshawar. The attack took place in a crowded area of Badhaber, a suburb of Peshawar. The blast leveled a mosque, damaged a boys' school, and collapsed a wall of the police station.

U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., issued a statement that balanced the need for economic development in the area with safety concerns.

“As the federal government and the state of Illinois considers expanding the role of Thomson Correctional Facility, they must first and foremost guarantee the safety and security of those who live in the surrounding area,” he said. “The prospects of thousands of additional good-paying jobs and much-needed revenue for our state are factors we should consider, but safety must be the primary consideration.”

He said he anticipated being briefed early this week and hearing from the public

A POW Camp for Terrorists as TV broadcasts a show-trial --and what else can we call Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial but a show-trial with Obama and Holder telling us he'll be found guilty-- is exactly what Illinois doesn't need.

A Jihadi recruiting event with a pre-convicted KSM on a court room soapbox and the rest of his crew sitting in the cornfields down the road from me.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

I wondered why my 2005 Thomson post was getting so many hits. The guys took my advice, but geez no one doubts the ability of Illinois to keep 'em locked up. It's the guys coming to Thomson to make the Jihadi Polical points that should have everyone rightfully concerned. Considering the recent arrests in Kinsman, IL the Jihadi's are certainly about. They're serious and it's foolish not to be wary.

Better Gitmo than Illinois. Any fool knows and I fear Quinn and Durbin will look tragic fools because of this lobbying.

THE NEW CHICAGO CONSPIRACY.; Copperheads and Rebels in Counsel. Infamous Plot to Burn the City and Liberate the Rebel Prisoners. HOW THEIR PLANS WERE FRUSTRATED Arrest of Many of the Leading Conspirators.A Brother of Gen. Marmaduke and John Morgan's Adjutant General in Custody.Large Quantities of Concealed Arms and Ammunition Discovered. MEASURES TAKEN TO PRESERVE THE PEACE. SECOND DISPATCH. Further Details. LATEST.

Something less dramatic w/o Copperhead Democrats but more lethal perhaps. It's not without precedent.